Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Staunton, October, 22 – The scenario
Moscow used in Crimea “could be repeated in various places in the post-Soviet space,”
Russian analysts say, but at present, Moscow lacks the resources to do
everywhere it might like, thus limiting the number of such cases to
Transdniestria and a few others.

On the “Svobodnaya pressa” portal
today, Andrey Ivanov says that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent
statements about Moldova and Transdniestria show that Chisinau’s moves in a
Ukrainian-like direction mean that Moscow is ready to pursue “a Crimean
scenario” in the latter (svpressa.ru/politic/article/101604/).

But several experts with whom the journalist
spoke said that Moscow is unlikely to use that strategy in other places where
it might primarily because it currently lacks the resources to do so but also
because it remains unclear whether the West intends to launch a major effort to
try to pull these countries “out of the zone of Russian influence.”

Aleksandr Karavayev of the Moscow
Center for the Study of the Post-Soviet Space told Ivanov that there is
instability in various parts of that space in large measure because “the
social-political conflict over the disintegration of the Soviet Union passed
along the entire line of the continental borders of a former unified country.”

In some places, the West has
intervened to try to pull these countries away from Russia and Russia has responded,
but there have been major changes within these countries and also in the West
whose leaders are very much divided concerning how far to challenge Moscow for
control in the region.

“Up to now,” he continued, “we do
not see a clearly expressed passionate impulse for assembling the lands in the
spirit of a neo-imperial paradigm. I still do not see the presence of resources
for such a neo-imperial breakout. Russia must be prepared in advance [for that
and not just financially] in the Reserve Fund.

“We must build up human resources, a
high technological potential and a fully-reformed military,” Karavayev
said.At that point, we will be able to
say that Russia has not simply ‘risen from its knees’ but is looking at the
world in a new way and is offering it a new model of integration.” That will
mark the end of disintegration and the beginning of reintegration.

Ivanov also spoke with Yury
Solozobov, the director of international projects at the Moscow Institute of
National Strategy.He said that the question
of the future application of a Crimean strategy to Russia’s neighbors depends
not only on what the West does but how those countries react.

If Russia’s neighbors try to turn
away from Moscow as Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova have done, they will be
punished as they have been, Solozobov says. If they don’t, they will not face
problems from Moscow although they may in some cases face problems created by
the West which may use color revolutions against them.

The country which faces the
greatest risk of such Western actions now is Azerbaijan because of oil and
logistical concerns. Indeed, the Moscow expert says, there are already clear
indications that the West is seeking to provoke a color revolution there. The
risks that the West will do so in Central Asia are small, but countries there
face threats from the south.

After 1991, Moscow deferred to the
West rather than sought to protect the interests of what Solozobov says are the
interests of “25 million of our compatriots, not all of whom live well.”But now Moscow is focusing on their interests
and is prepared to combat discrimination against them in many ways.

According to Solozobov, “the new
states were formed along the administrative borders of the union republics,”
borders that were drawn in Moscow for various reasons. Sometimes that divided
peoples, including the Russians. “Real borders,” he insisted, “pass where
people have shed blood by defending the land of their ancestors.”

Eurasia,
he continued, is now entering “a second period of the disintegration of the
Soviet empire,” one in which the two major geopolitical unions, the Eurasian
and European one, cannot coexist “without buffer states.” Those countries which
do not want to remain neutral “will inevitably fall victim to economic and
territorial disintegration.”